


Hell Is The Talking Type

by slugsies, w3nchy



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Dinner and Diatribes, Dinner and Diatribes - Hozier (Music Video), Dinner and Diatribes - Hozier (Song)
Genre: Cannibalism, F/M, Horror, but not really, but sort of, gore?, i guess?, idk - Freeform, kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23511412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slugsies/pseuds/slugsies, https://archiveofourown.org/users/w3nchy/pseuds/w3nchy
Summary: he's a demon, he brings them to his realm to feast on with his friends.she hates him for itmy lovely bf and i did an rp based on the dinner and diatribes video, quite loosely based actually
Relationships: Andrew Hozier-Byrne/Original Character(s), Andrew Hozier-Byrne/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

She stood in the 'dining room' again. She knew it wasn't a real dining room, it was something made up by him. That demon. Whatever He was.  
She sat opposite him and looked directly at him. The table was of course filled with bowls and plates of disgusting 'food'.  
'Meat' that would taste like ash if you chewed it.  
'Apples' that were sickly sweet and hollowed out, then apparently filled with apple flavoured syrup that would cling to your tongue if you tried to eat it.  
It wasn't real. None of it was. She didn't even know if He was real.  
"You've brought me back here again." she stated.  
The demon looked up at her from his empty plate and nodded slowly, to be sure She understood.  
"Yes, I have," he replied carefully, folding his hands together on the table between them. "Is that really so terrible?"  
Her expression told him it was, though he didn't mind. It wasn't the most visceral reaction he had ever received and he certainly didn't care what she thought.  
"Take a seat. Eat, if you feel so inclined," he instructed, outstretching an arm to gesture to one of the many empty seats opposite him. He was certain she wouldn't dare take a bite of the 'feast' laid out before her, but he was a hospitable guest, as ever.  
She did indeed sit down, but she didn't eat.  
She watched the demon as he stared right back at her, and she blinked a few times.  
"You know I won't eat anything you offer me." she said, her eyes trailing over the 'food'.  
"You keep bringing me here to this...dinner party for two, yet none of it gets eaten. Why do you keep bringing me here?" she asked, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.  
The demon put his elbows on his table in a display of poor table manners and rested his chin on his folded hands, watching her with narrowed eyes like a cat.  
"I happen to quite like your company. I do hope that isn't an issue," he replied calmly, his vile teeth showing through with every word he spoke and making her hard-pressed to look at anything else. "It's a shame. I'm getting the inkling you don't feel the same way."  
He grinned at her, though it was more a teasing sneer than anything.  
"You'd be right." she replied sourly, her eyes trying to look away from his mouth.  
She pulled her silk evening gown around her a little tighter, in an attempt to hide. He’d requested that she wear it, for he’d only want her to look her best for his dinner party. The only issue with that was that it didn’t really fit her in certain places. It hung off of her unflatteringly and smelled too sweet. She figured that it wouldn’t be foolish to believe that she hadn’t been the first to wear it.  
"You could have anyone's company. Perhaps even someone as...someone who would happily eat your...food." she said vaguely.  
"I don't want to keep being brought to this damn dining room."  
The well-dressed demon huffed a short laugh, and it made her shoot him a glare.  
"But I want your company," he replied simply, his eyes boring holes into her gown.  
She felt as though he could see her body beneath the fabric - he was otherworldly, so maybe he could and she just had no idea...  
He smiled at her when he noticed the slight panic evident in her eyes, though it did nothing to soothe her. She looked like a frightened lamb. Adorable. He wanted to sink his -  
Teeth into her.  
She huffed and frowned deeply at him.  
"Bastard." she murmured, finding herself starting to relax into the chair.  
This thing hadn't hurt her so far, so she reasoned that he wouldn't have a reason to hurt her now.  
"You've been doing this a lot lately. Every night this week." she mumbled.  
It had started about three weeks ago.  
The first few times he'd brought her she'd been terrified and cried and screamed at him, telling him that he was the Devil, that he was pure evil, that she wanted to go home.  
The house, manor, castle, place, she was being kept in was beautiful, and dark and cold. There was no sunlight or moonlight, and whenever she'd tried to look out of the windows it had just been total blackness. He hummed thoughtfully and nodded slightly. He took no offense to the weak insult and leaned back in his chair.  
"Yes, I have been, haven't I?" he mused sardonically, curling the end of his moustache between a finger and thumb. "I can't imagine that's too much of an issue, though, is it? After all, you're not a wailing mess on the ground anymore."  
He smirked and cut his eyes at her across the banquet. He didn't usually take this much of a liking to humans, though this one in particular was rather pretty, and fun to toy with. She'd become less afraid of answering back the more he had spoken to her. Fascinating.  
"Can you blame me for being a 'wailing mess on the ground'? I was terrified." she reasoned, folding her arms.  
"I... it's not like I enjoy it when you bring me here, it's more like... I'm putting up with it." she said, placing her folded arms on the table before her, carefully avoiding the plates.  
"I don't know anything about you." she said, seemingly out of the blue. Perhaps it was a need to understand what he was exactly, or maybe a way to figure out a plan of escape, or perhaps it was just plain curiosity.  
He tilted his head and watched her for a moment.  
"I suppose you're right."  
He thought, then opened his mouth, his eyes glittering mischievously.  
"Why don't we get to know each other a little better?" he suggested, raising his eyebrows minutely. "Although... you must already know /some/ things about me."  
\- Those things being that he was not entirely human and an irritating trickster who delighted in others' confusion and annoyance. And, of course, that he was a foodie, in a very loose sense of the word.  
"I know that you're not from here. I know you're not human, I know this isn't real. I know you delight in tricking people and watching people squirm in discomfort that you cause." she rattled off, her eyes meeting his.  
"And I know you're cruel." she added. The demon nodded along, a small smile upon his face. Well, yes, that much was true.  
"Cruel is a matter of perspective," he mused, although he did have the tendency to be cruel. Very cruel, in fact.  
She looked at the bowl of marshmallows that sat before the demon, and frowned at him.  
"What do you use to roast them?"  
There was a fireplace behind him, a large structure of grandeur, though she doubted it would be very convenient to keep turning around whenever he wanted to make the treat gooey and sticky.  
When she asked about the marshmallows, he had to laugh. Then, he tapped his nose, making a big charade about it being a secret.  
"Wouldn't you like to know?" he chuckled, a dark edge to his voice that made her both immensely more curious and also sorry that she had ever asked about it.  
"You're all so very curious, aren't you? That saying - 'curiosity killed the cat' - it's very fitting."  
"When humans don't understand something we ask. That's how we learn." she said, as if it was obvious and he was just being pretentious on purpose.  
"Being curious isn't necessarily a bad thing." she added, her gaze wandering down to the marshmallows yet again. She couldn't have had one even if she wanted one, due to the ingredients, though she was sure they weren't real anyway.  
"Unless you don't roast them." she said, shrugging. She didn't know many people who did roast marshmallows, it wasn’t all that popular back home.  
"Oh, no, I do."  
His gaze was nearly black. She felt like she'd be swallowed up if she looked directly into his eyes.  
"Are you really that eager to see what I use to roast them?" he asked, an edge to his voice that suggested he secretly (or not-so-secretly) wanted her to see. Maybe she shouldn't have asked, but the desire for knowledge was eating away at her sense of self-preservation. Perhaps that was why she nodded slowly.  
It was like a fog lifted from her vision; in front of him, blazing and filling the room with the stench of burnt flesh, was unmistakably a corpse. She would have run, but she felt rooted to her chair, as he carefully and calculatedly put a marshmallow to the flame and then chewed with his black teeth bared.  
She's eyes went wide and she leaned back to look at the sight before her.  
She covered her eyes and shook her head.  
"Stop it!" she cried, trying not to breathe in the disgusting smell. It was awful, it was something she’d of course never experienced. She’d never seen a dead body, much less a burning one.  
"Please!" she almost sobbed. She could feel the heat against her arms and eventually got up and turned away from the table, taking a few steps away to avoid having to see or feel or smell what he was showing her.  
His laugh seemed to echo in her ears - and just as soon as the burning cadaver had appeared, it vanished. She did not move to sit back down, simply hovered, afraid and uncertain, by her empty chair.  
"You asked," he reminded her, his voice level. "I simply showed you. It's not as if I'm forcing you to eat it."  
That much was true; he had only ever invited her to eat, never forced food down her throat or shoved a full plate in front of her.  
She trembled but managed to wipe the tears from her eyes.  
"Is that why I'm here? Is that what you're planning on doing to me?" she asked weakly.  
The very thought of that just made her squirm and feel faint.  
"I asked you how you roasted them, I didn't ask you to show me."  
He barked out a laugh.  
"No, I like you far too much to do that to you. Why would I waste my time sitting with you for weeks on end just to roast marshmallows on you?" he guffawed. "No, no, you're just... enjoyable company. And your company is more enjoyable when you're alive and intact."  
His smile did nothing to soothe her nerves, just set her even more on edge.  
"Come, now, I'm not all that bad."  
\- He was, but that didn't mean he couldn't play the nice guy, just for a little bit.  
She looked at him for a moment longer and sat down in the chair, more disgusted than afraid at this point.  
"You're revolting," she said exasperatedly, then proceeded to cross her arms and avoid his gaze.  
The demon simply grinned; he knew that much already.  
He wasn't to be trusted, she knew that, but she couldn't just get up and leave his realm, or whatever it was.  
He's the one who decided. He'd made that pretty obvious already.  
"How many people have you done that to?" she decided to ask.  
"Mm..." he replied, pondering her question for a moment. "Too many to count."  
For once, he had given her a straight answer, though it was far from a reassurance. His smile grew when she shuddered until he looked like a dog baring its teeth, ready to snap and draw blood.  
The dinner party was over, at least, that’s what she’d stated.  
She stood up, gave him a long, unblinking gaze, then turned and left the dining room, not giving much care to what she’d find out there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an escalation of sorts

She wasn’t sure what the outside held. She wasn’t even sure she could get outside.  
Whenever she’d stare out of the windows it looked foggy, and there was no light. It was a thick black mist, sort of a sick representation of her mind.   
She’d been there for what could have been months, even years, she didn’t know. There was no way of telling the time, no sunlight, no clocks, though she assumed that time didn’t matter to him. Perhaps it wasn’t even a construct he was familiar with.   
What she could see out of the windows was other parts of the building, or castle, or...manor. Windows that were lit brightly from the candlelight inside.  
She stood next to a window now, her hand on the thick, red velvet curtain as she held it back to look ‘outside’.  
He always had a way of knowing what she was thinking about; perhaps the mansion was inside her head, allowing him access to every thought that ran through her brain.  
He knocked on the door and hardly waited for a response, knowing she would not begrudge his presence - outwardly, at least. He stood just inside the doorway and watched her.

"You're wondering what's out there, aren't you?" he pointed out, following her gaze to the haze outside her window. He walked forward to put a hand against the glass. "There's nothing to speak of, but there can be if you'd like."  
He was nothing if not an accommodating host.

“What would you put there?” she asked gently, looking up at him as he stared out into the darkness.  
She assumed the demon's reasoning for keeping her in the castle was that he was lonely. Even with the dinner guests that would come and go, and his meals that would come and…  
She gritted her teeth and inhaled sharply through her nose. It didn’t bear thinking about.  
The air between them had become more comfortable, oddly enough, and she didn’t shy away when the demon’s elbow brushed her shoulder.  
The demon peered down at her curiously, then looked back out to the shifting expanse of blackness just beyond the brick walls of the home he had conjured.

"Anything you wanted, honey. A garden and a courtyard, maybe..." he murmured quietly, wracking his brain to remember what the original manor he had based this space off of had to offer.

“It would probably be pointless. It wouldn’t be real.” she murmured sadly.  
The sadness in her voice didn't go amiss, but he couldn't rectify that whilst attending to his own selfish needs. He wanted her to himself. It got lonely, being a demon.  
She leaned her head against his chest and sighed.   
She forced a smile and pulled away to look up at him. 

“A courtyard might be nice, and a garden. Maybe...could you do sunlight?” she asked quietly as if they were having a secret conversation.   
Of course, it wouldn’t be real sunlight. It wouldn’t have the warmth or the atmosphere that the real star would give on a sunny day, when she and her best friend would go to the beach, or sit out in the garden and drink fruity cider.   
He blinked, then laughed and ran a hand through her hair. He hadn't forgotten about it, had he?

"Sunlight, yes, of course," he assured her, making a mental note to provide everything she had asked for. He loomed over her calmly, pressing a kiss to her head, then hummed to himself. 

"Something's bothering you - not just what's outside your window. What is it?"  
He scrutinized her, though there was no anger in his dark eyes. Just curiosity.  
She stayed quiet for a few moments, but figured that he’d find out eventually, so decided to voice her fear.

“When will you be having your next dinner party? Who will be your meal?” she asked.   
She was certain that the ‘people’ he invited to his dinner parties were demons too. She had made eye contact with a ‘woman’, whose skin didn’t seem right. It was too waxy and wet looking, and her hair looked synthetic too. 

"Not for a little while, honey. I'm not that hungry yet," he promised her.  
She kept her gaze on the darkness outside. She couldn’t see her own reflection in the glass, even with the darkness outside. It was just another reminder that it wasn’t real.  
He rubbed his chin ruefully and gazed out into the vastness outside of his realm, imagining it shifting and reforming into what she desired.

“Will you bring another girl to your realm, and keep her all to yourself?”  
The thought made her sick with the feeling of jealousy. Why would she be jealous?   
She didn’t want him to have another girl to feast on. That was it. She didn’t want him to taste anything but her.  
Sick.   
It was a sick, disgusting thought.   
She put it down to his tendencies rubbing off on her. He was sick, and she was around him.  
He was making her sick.  
He hadn't taken her for the jealous type. How strange that she would even be jealous of his next meal.

"I don't plan on bringing any other human here to keep."  
He turned to her and quirked an eyebrow, wondering if what he'd said had soothed her.  
It had clearly helped. She smiled a little and nodded.  
“Alright.” she whispered.  
“I...I don’t like your demon friends.” she confessed, which made the ‘man’ laugh.   
She was sure that if they saw her again they’d be shocked, if they didn’t know she was still alive of course. Was it common for demons to keep humans around? Or did the creatures just take humans as they pleased and eat them?

“They...the way they looked at me.” she said shakily, a visible chill running down her spine.  
They had indeed stared at her as if she was a delicacy, and it made her sick.

"I wouldn't worry about them, honey," he assured her, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it. "They won't dare lay a hand on you."  
He wouldn't allow it; he viewed her as a pet in the way that a human would distinguish between a dog and a cow, somehow different, one suitable for consumption and one a loyal companion.  
He would not eat her - probably not, anyway - and his "friends" would not harm a hair on her head.  
She looked up at him and sighed.  
She wasn’t sure how he viewed her at this point. Whether it was a romantic relationship or a relationship between a ‘man’ and the lamb he was raising for slaughter.  
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, then she moved away from the window, back into the warmly lit room.  
She sat down on one of the velvet sofas in front of the large, roaring fireplace in the bedroom she’d been so lovingly given by the demon and curled her feet up under the long gown she was wearing.

He knew he couldn't keep her forever, but he wanted to so badly. It was lonely and he didn't dare risk possessing a human to be close to her in her other life - her real life. He'd get hungry far too quickly.  
He eventually wandered over to sit next to her and smiled down at her, baring his teeth.  
She looked at the demon as he sat down next to her, and her gaze lingered on his teeth.  
She’d asked him to brush them before, but he’d denied, seemingly enjoying the appearance of the rot on his teeth.  
He licked and sucked them often, and she wondered if the blackness tasted like sweet marshmallows to him. 

“How did you create this place?” she asked. It was something she hadn’t asked before. She knew it wasn’t real. Of course it wasn’t real, which only made her more curious.  
He wrapped an arm around her and cast his gaze up to the ceiling, almost taking a moment to wonder for himself just what it had taken to create the space they currently inhabited. He pondered on it for a minute, then tapped the side of his head.

"I simply... imagine what I want there to be, and there it is. Of course, I can't take all the credit; this manor is based on an existing property." He paused and thought about it for a moment. "Well, I don't know if it still exists. But it did once."  
He shrugged, unable to give her a clearer answer. It was rather complicated. 

"Make of it what you will, honey."  
She seemed content to accept the answer, and laid her head on the man's shoulder. 

“I miss the real world.” she whispered, her fingertips tracing the seam on his dress trousers.  
“I miss feeling the wind and the sun, and water and grass.” she lamented, breathing in his scent.   
Her fingers stroked further up his thigh before she breathed out a laugh and pulled her hand away.

“I miss the feeling of another person.”  
He inhaled sharply when she snatched her hand away. It was a surprisingly human response for such an unearthly creature. He melted back into the sofa and sighed.

"Am I not enough?" he teased, knowing full-well what she meant. He was not a person, and this world he had bricked them up inside was all artificial. He exhaled slowly. He wasn't prepared to say he was too selfish to want her to go.  
She turned to sit sideways on the sofa and scoffed, shaking her head.

“You’re not a person.” she said simply.   
She placed a hand on his thigh and leaned in close to press her head to his and close her eyes.  
“Your company is valued though.” she smiled, then pulled away again.   
It was a continuous cycle, wanting to be close to him, then pulling away, then going back.   
His aura seemed to reel her in, and she despised it and enjoyed it at the same time.   
This realm was confusing.

“I miss the feeling of a man's hands on me.” she murmured.  
She hadn’t had all that much experience with men, but she knew what the attention felt like. She knew how it felt to press her lips against another person’s in a drunken stupor, desperate for someone to want her.  
He huffed out a laugh and stroked a stray hair behind her ear with a gentle hand.  
Humans were confusing, and this one was no exception.

"You can have mine as a substitute for now," he murmured, not sure what she wanted him to say. He slid his hand to stroke her cheek gently, furrowing his eyebrows slightly in a display of concern that may or may not have been real. Perhaps he was just mirroring human behaviour he had witnessed before.  
She pressed her cheek into his hand and sighed longingly.   
"I suppose your hands will suffice." she whispered. 

He wasn't different from his 'friends' in the way that he stared at her like a piece of meat, ready to be torn into by starving dogs.   
She leaned back against his arm and closed her eyes. She could almost imagine that she was back home in the arms of a human. Almost.  
He smiled down at her and cooed at her as she nuzzled into his palm. She was growing to trust him; he'd try to make sure that wasn't a mistake.  
The pair sat in silence until he spoke up.

"Would you like to go into the garden?" he asked, grinning at her. He hoped she'd like it - perhaps it would make her a little more reluctant to leave him and stop her from talking about home.

"You did it?" she asked, slowly lifting herself off of the sofa and cautiously wandering over to the window. She pulled back the curtain and immediately had to close it. She put her hands to her eyes and made a sound of pain. 

"It's so bright." she complained. She hadn't seen sunlight in so long, her eyes hadn't prepared themselves. She definitely hadn’t expected that. If anything it gave her a good estimate of how long she’d truly been tucked away from the real world.

"Perhaps... perhaps if you're to make night present here, we could go outside when it's darker." she offered.  
He raised his eyebrows in surprise, then laughed and nodded.

"Yes, of course. ...How long does sunlight last for again?" he asked, daring to peek out of the curtains at the brilliant daylight. Any concept of time in this realm was totally foreign. The two went to bed and woke up whenever they felt tired or rested, not relying on a circadian rhythm to rule their waking hours.   
"...I could just make it dark now if you wanted to go out now."  
He reasoned that it could easily be night now back at her home and they just wouldn't know it.

"It's alright. I'm comfortable just being in here.." she said softly, and sat back down on the sofa.   
"Come and be with me." she smiled, beckoning him over.   
She laid down, and he laid next to her, holding her body against his, the demon's long fingers pressing against the soft satin of the woman's evening gown. 

"Thank you, though." she murmured, looking up at him.  
He trailed his long fingers over the sleek material of her gown and he sighed, letting his eyes close for a moment. God, what was he going to do when he finally had to release her from his grasp? Maybe he'd have to find another - but what if there wasn't any other like her?  
He opened his dark eyes to watch her again, not wanting to take his gaze off of her for too long.

"No problem, honey," he murmured, his tone dulcet and deep like a pool of molasses.  
She wet her lips with her tongue and her eyes flicked down to his mouth, then back up to his eyes. 

"I have a question." she murmured.   
"If you were to take me, to lay with me, without forcing yourself to be gentle with me, what would happen? I mean, on account of you being...not human?" she asked.   
There’d been light touches here and there, and almost kisses. The tension had continued to build, and the two of them knew it, but didn’t want to say anything.  
He seemed to take a moment to process her question, then laughed breathlessly and trailed a hand down her body.

"It hasn't happened often... but if I did, you'd know about it, honey," he chuckled, smiling at her. She was tempting him - but he had to hold back. He didn't want to hurt her too much. It made it less fun when she wasn't enjoying herself, he thought.  
"Why do you ask?"  
His eyes bored into hers.

"Curiosity." she smiled, and stared right back at him.   
Was this Stockholm syndrome? It felt like it. Could it be helped? He’d kept her captive but treated her so well. It was confusing, she was fond of him one moment, and loathed him the next. This place was messing with her mind.  
She got up from the sofa to go and stand in front of the lit fireplace.   
It wasn't warm, but it was pretty to look at. 

"So tell me. What would happen if...What would happen if you fucked me properly? Without holding back." she said boldly, staring into the flames.  
His eyes followed her, the bright flames dimming her to a mere silhouette against an orange backdrop. He regarded her for a moment, then admitted:   
"I'd probably tear you. Bruise you. Make you bleed - on the outside and maybe the inside, too."  
He watched for a flinch, but she was unmoving and unaffected by his words.  
"It wouldn't feel good for you."

"Would it kill me? Am I able to die here?" she asked, furrowing her eyebrows though he couldn't see them.   
"It shouldn't do... I don't think. I haven't really done that without holding back all that often," he mused, thinking back to the few humans he had done it to. It could have been decades ago for all he knew; time was a blur.  
The thought was terrifying. If she died there, would she be dead in real life? Was this all in her head? Did she still have a physical form in the real world that was in a comatose state? Or was she missing due to being in this place? Everything was too much, and she braced herself against the mantlepiece to steady herself.   
"Are you going to kill me eventually, honey?"

He inhaled. If he killed her, he wouldn't have to deal with the pain of letting her leave. But he'd still have to deal with the loneliness either way.

"I'm not currently planning on it."  
He grinned. This was all part of his act as a demon; keep her guessing.  
She exhaled a dry laugh and shook her head. 

"You're ridiculous." she whispered, then turned back to look at him.   
"You...you never give me a real answer. You're driving me insane." she stated, taking a step closer to the demon and giving him a desperate gaze.  
"Why not just kill me, eat me, and get it over with? Why do you want to torment me any longer?"  
He clicked his tongue and patted the sofa next to him, still lounging on it luxuriously.

"I don't mean to torment you, honey. Did I not just say I have no plan to eat you?" he cooed, cutting his eyes at her. He couldn't tell whether she was truly angry at him or simply frustrated. He wasn't the best judge of that. "Come, lay with me."  
He did want her, even if he was loathe to say it outright.  
She didn't want to give into him. The frustration was building up inside her again and she shook her head.   
No. She wouldn't. This realm was too much. She missed her parents, her best friend, her home. 

"I..." she cut herself off with a shake of the head and hurried to leave the room, slamming the door behind her and holding her dress as she made her way down the seemingly never-ending corridor. She stopped when she came to a door that she recognized. The door to the dining room. She opened the door, entered the room, then closed the door and leaned against it, sliding down to the floor and curling in on herself. She didn't want the neverending danger. She didn't want to not know her fate. She didn't want to look at him and know that he was thinking about devouring her, no matter how many times he denied it.

He blinked a few times, then turned his head in the direction of the slamming door. That certainly wasn't the response he expected. Was it best to leave her to her tears or should he go follow her? This definitely wasn't something he'd ever considered he would have to think about.  
Begrudgingly, he got up front the velvet seat and meandered up the hallway, eventually knocking on the door to the dining room.

"Honey?" he called through the mahogany. He didn't know what else to say. 'Are you okay?' seemed rather superfluous when she was already crying.  
She leaned her head back against the door and sniffled. Her cheeks and lips were red and wet, her eyes were glassy and she looked completely miserable. She heard him call out to her with his favourite nickname, and she shook her head to herself. 

"Why are you doing this to me?!" she cried weakly, her voice muffled due to the thickness of the wood.  
"Because..." He paused. Why was he doing this? His instincts had told him to take this girl and eat her, but now that it came down to it, he wasn't sure he even wanted to do that. "Because your company fuels me."  
He supposed that wasn't a lie; he could feed in other ways rather than just devouring flesh.  
There was another pause and he shuffled behind the door.

"...Will you let me in?" he asked, sounding surprisingly genuine. What on earth was the matter with him? He couldn't tell.  
She stood up reluctantly and opened the door, stepping aside to let him in. He closed the door behind him and she took a deep breath.  
This place was breaking her. When was the last time she’d had a cohesive thought? Why couldn’t she look at him and hate him? One minute she was completely drawn to him, letting him lay next to her, stroke her skin, and whisper sweet words to her, the next she wanted to be as far away from him as possible, away from the place and back home.  
She put a hand to her head and sniffled.

"I want this to end. I...I want normal things. I want to be fucked. I...I want a man to hold me and fuck me and want me. I want to be able to eat real food, feel real heat, real wind and the sun." she said hoarsely as she walked around the unset dining table.   
"I don't want to be your feast, darling." she sniffled, finally directing her gaze to him.  
"You want to leave," he replied, summarising what she had just said in a simple sentence. His tone was flat and he stared at her soullessly, his shoulders sagging slightly.   
"Is there no way I could make this better for you?"  
He'd even bring other people from her real-life to this realm if it meant she would want to stay. Just... the idea of her leaving didn't sit right with him. He wanted her to himself... unless he could follow her home.  
He watched her, giving no indication of what he was thinking about.  
She looked down at the ground for a long moment, assessing her thoughts, then spoke.

"You didn't expect you'd want to keep me around." she murmured. She slowly approached him again and shook her head slowly, almost in disbelief.  
"You don't want to let me go." she stated. It was obvious. He wanted her.   
She stepped back a little as her captor drew closer, and backed away until she met the hard wood of the table. 

"What changed your mind about eating me?"  
He growled in his throat and closed his eyes, furious at himself that she had discovered his true feelings on the matter. When he composed himself, he opened his eyes and began to speak.

"I... don't rightly know. I think it's just - your company. And even if I am a demon, a man still gets lonely," he admitted, knowing there was no point in lying to her when she essentially knew everything already.  
He put his hands on her arms and looked her directly in the eye to show he was being authentic.

"You're not a man. You're an imitation of one." she spat. Her arm raised up to grasp his tie and pull him down to her level.   
"What happens when you can't cope with the hunger? Is that when you and your guests will devour me?" she asked, her lips almost against his.   
"Will you throw another dinner party, grander than the last, perhaps even lasting longer than a day? How hungry will you be?" she asked, bringing her other hand to his face and dipping her thumb into his mouth.

The demon's mouth watered around her thumb and he visibly panted like a dog. Anything she had just said to him had flown in one ear and out the other; he was now utterly focused on the grip she had on him, both metaphorically and physically.  
He couldn't form any words with her thumb in his mouth, so he just closed his eyes and sucked on it gently, as if to prove he wasn't going to eat her. He was not ruled by his nature.  
But she tasted incredible. He could feel his resolve crumble slightly. He wanted her so badly, he wanted to sink his teeth into her, roast her, cut into her and serve her up, just like the others.  
She watched, enraptured by the sight of his lips around her digit.  
She pulled her wet thumb out of his mouth, stroked it over his lips, and pushed her thumb back into his mouth, deeper than she had the first time. 

"Deeper." she whispered, pushing it in up to the knuckle. The sight was erotic and she felt her cheeks grow warm.   
"Would fucking me be a less gory way of devouring me?" she asked with raised eyebrows. Her eyes were still wet, and her cheeks were red, but her overall demeanor was dominating and strong.  
The demon sighed through his nose. How had such a powerful creature come to be putty in her hands? The sight was astounding.  
He opened his eyes to watch her as she pressed her thumb against his tongue and hummed noncommittally around it before letting his eyes fall shut again.  
He supposed it could be considered that. He had access to every inch of her, he had the opportunity to taste her... yes, it very well could be that.  
She imagined that he could sit there all day and suckle on her, just to get a taste. 

She finally pulled her thumb away to push herself up onto the dining table and look at the demon.   
He didn't whine, thankfully, but he did sigh when she removed her thumb from his mouth. Bashfully, he wiped his lips free of spittle and stood up straight, adjusting his tie after she had grabbed it.  
"I keep having dreams that you're eating me. It feels real though. Like sleep paralysis, or whatever it's called. I can feel every cut. You feed me to myself sometimes. Pieces of my breasts and thighs." she mumbled.

He grinned when he realized what she had said.  
"Oh, you do?" he asked in a tone that /definitely/ didn't implicate him as the culprit behind these dreams.  
She nodded and swung her legs from the table.   
"They're dreadful. I can feel the knife sinking into me. You eat me like lamb, roast me over a candle for a few moments, then put me in your mouth. I...I keep finding myself thinking that it's real." she confessed, clearly unaware that it was real, and that he just kept restoring her form, and telling her it was all a dream.  
"When will you feast again?" she asked again, watching as her demon host thought for a moment.  
He tilted his head like a wolf regarding a rabbit. He decided not to say anything more about it; he had just told her he didn't want to eat her, after all. Those dreams would regrettably have to stop, no matter how much fun he had - and that she would sometimes have, too.  
"Perhaps in a day or two," he finally answered, reaching to stroke her hair back. "Are you anticipating it?"  
Of course she was. He knew she disliked his... companions when they came by to feast as well.

"Who's your feast?" she asked, recoiling from him and pushing herself further back so that she was fully sat on the table.   
If he said that she was his planned meal she'd likely scream and run away from him, yelling at him about how he was cruel and evil.   
When he also got onto the table and crawled to hover over her she trembled and looked up at him, his pupils wide and his breathing heavy.  
"W-Who will you be eating?" she repeated when she got no response, her voice shaky.  
Had he lied to her? Was he going to devour her, just like he’d originally intended to? Was he going to set her on fire and roast his sweets on her with his friends as his audience?  
She panted as he hovered over her with a sick grin, and fresh tears welled up in her eyes.  
He leaned in so close that she could feel his breath and pressed herself into the table to try and fruitlessly escape him before he finally murmured: "Not you."

He grinned at her, showcasing a mouthful of marred teeth in the process, and sat up slowly, his eyes still trained on her.  
"You don't need to be scared, honey. You're fine."  
He didn't know how else to convince her. One of his acquaintances was bringing along their own food as the centerpiece for that feast.  
She'd almost started crying, and she pushed herself up as he sat back, kneeling over her body. 

"You’re a bastard." she hissed. All that build-up of worry, fear and tears, only for him to give her that same smile as always and reassure her that he wasn’t planning on eating her, yet.  
"You never tire of it, do you?" she huffed, shaking her head at him.   
"You constantly toy with me like I’m a pet for something. Why do you like seeing me like this?" she asked from her place beneath his imposing form.  
He cast his gaze around the empty room incredulously before turning back to her with a shrug.  
"Because I'm a demon, perhaps?" he suggested, leaning down to nip her neck quickly before she could reach out to push him away. "Don't worry, honey. You're fine." he repeated.

Bless her. She was shaking like a leaf; he reached out to stroke her cheek. Poor thing still couldn't tell when the big bad demon was playing with her.  
"You're evil. You're so cruel." she pointed out, as if he wasn't a literal demon.   
Was this Hell? Was she in Hell?   
She shoved the demon off of her and got off the table with a huff and a straightening of her dress.  
She sat down on one of the many chairs around the table and crossed her arms.

"When you look at me, when you...when you touch me, when you even breathe around me...do you feel the urge to eat me?" she asked, looking down at her satin dress.

"You make it sound like it's the only thing on my mind," he replied with a scoff, standing up from the table and surveying her with a bemused expression. "When you're around... an animal, say, do you feel the urge to eat that?"  
He knew from months of eating together that she didn't consume animals the same way he did, but it was the closest analogy he could think of.  
"I'm not the worst monster out there, honey."

"Of course not. I don't appreciate the comparison by the way." she mumbled, shifting in her chair. She couldn't seem to sit still. Everywhere in the castle made her feel restless.  
"I want to sleep. This place is so tiring." she said, her tone blatantly accusatory.  
The atmosphere in the dining room was stiff, and the last new minutes had certainly been a whirlpool of emotions. Lust, fondness, fear. Emotions that wouldn’t usually go hand in hand.  
She stood up and left the dining room, her demonic host following her with that sick smile.   
The place was huge, with many, many doors. She hadn’t been in most of them, as she’d been kept in the bedroom he’d given her. She wondered what was behind the doors. Were they just for show, or were there rooms beyond them?

She entered the bedroom and shoved off the evening gown he liked her to wear. It smelled sickly sweet, overwhelming, almost like it had been worn by- It had been. The gown had been worn by many sweet women before her, obviously. She supposed he just liked the colour of the dress. The beautiful gown was now crumpled on the floor, and she looked down at it.  
"What do you have them wear when you burn them?"  
He stared at the wrinkled satin on the floor, admiring the way the green fabric caught the light, then looked up at her with a serious look in his eye.  
"Mostly, they wear nothing," he admitted. It affected the taste and meant he had to pluck fabric out of his mouth. "Some of them wear linen shifts."  
His eyes lingered on her naked body, mostly the way her form curved, and the soft flesh that looked all so appetizing.   
He took a step toward her and she took a step back, ending up with her sitting on the bed, and him standing before her.   
“You’re horrific.” she whispered.   
He smiled again, with those awful, disgusting teeth and looked down at her.   
“Yes.”


End file.
